Two For One
by Sophia Hawkins
Summary: Tony Vincenzo thought he was finally going to be free from Kolchak and his antics while the reporter was on vacation; but instead he just wound up swapping one Kolchak for another.
1. Chapter 1

Two For One

Author's note: The basis for this story came from an idea started in a "Columbo" story I previously wrote called "Two Trains in the Night". Hope you enjoy!

It was another typical busy day in the INS building; typewriter keys were pounding, phones were ringing, rough drafts were being jotted down in shorthand, everything was normal, except for the lack of one typewriter pounding along with the rest. Carl Kolchak's desk sat empty and would for the next two weeks as he was off on his vacation, a fact that Tony Vincenzo was _very_ grateful for. Two weeks without phone calls from the police telling him that one of his best reporters had been arrested _again_, two weeks without gibberish stories about vampires or werewolves or swamp monsters. In fact, Vincenzo had thought to himself the night Carl left to start his vacation, he could get used to this.

Tony had been out that morning when a new face entered the office. Carrying a small black travel bag slung over her shoulder, and an expensive camera case swinging in one hand, in stepped a young woman with short blonde tan hair, dressed in a T-shirt and blue jeans and white sneakers. She looked around the office and noticed that most of the desks were currently empty, at one sat an old white haired woman, and at another sat a timid looking man with wavy brown hair and a matching mustache, dressed in a three piece suit and glancing over his typewriter with a scrutinizing glare.

The young woman looked around the room again and seeing there was nobody else around, she went up to the old woman and quietly asked her, "Is Mr. Vincenzo here?"

"I don't think so, dear," she answered.

So then the woman went over to the man's desk and interrupted his typing and asked him, "Is Tony Vincenzo here?"

"Mr. Vincenzo is out at the moment," he answered, "Do you have a message for him?"

"No that's fine," she answered, "I'll wait."

She turned on her heel and returned to the middle of the room and looked at the desks again. One by one she passed them by and looked them over until she came to one in the corner of the room, and apparently she found whatever she was looking for because she put her bags down, sat down in the chair behind it, put a new piece of paper into the typewriter and started typing.

Miss Emily took a break from her puzzle for the day and leaned over towards Ron Updike's desk and whispered to him, "That's Carl's desk."

Ron looked up and over to the desk where the young woman was furiously pounding on the keys of Carl's typewriter, he shrugged and said, "Maybe Vincenzo got smart and finally fired him."

"Oh I don't believe he'd do that," Miss Emily said as she went back to her puzzle.

A few minutes later, Tony entered the office and started a beeline to his desk when he heard something that made him stop. Another typewriter was being used, he stopped in his tracks and grimaced, not _any_ typewriter he would bet, he would swear before he even turned around that it was none other than _Kolchak's_ typewriter. Slowly, reluctantly, he turned around and he did see somebody at Kolchak's desk punching up something.

Tony felt his blood pressure rising and his indigestion acting up again, what part of two weeks vacation didn't the man get? He felt his hands curl up into fists and he felt his vocal chords preparing for when he bellowed clear across the room, "KOLCHAK!"

The chair spun around and the woman jumped up like a shot from a gun. Tony saw her and immediately felt his indigestion get worse. He went over to the woman and said, "Excuse me ma'am, I thought you were somebody else."

"You," the woman said, her voice shaking a bit, "Must be Mr. Vincenzo."

"Yes, and who are you?" he asked.

"Uh…well…" she said, "I'm…I've come here for a job, Mr. Vincenzo."

"A job?" he repeated.

"Yes," she answered, "I understand you have a temporary opening."

He shook his head, "Must be some mistake, I haven't put out any notice for new help."

"No, it wasn't from a notice, sir," she said, "I'm here to fill in for Carl Kolchak while he's on vacation."

Oooh, his stomach just started pulsating. That name, why did she have to say that name?

"How do you know Kolchak?" he asked.

"Uh, well you see sir," the woman reached into her pocket, took out a black wallet and flipped it open to show her driver's license, "He's my uncle, my name is Carla Kolchak."

"What!?" Tony asked in disbelief. Too many questions were going through his mind to properly be processed, so he settled for the first one he could coherently think of, "Kolchak has a niece?"

"Yes," she answered, "My mom is his sister."

Tony did a double take and asked, "Kolchak has a sister?"

"Oh really," Updike spoke up, "Well clearly his insanity isn't hereditary." Tony turned around and glared at him and Ron became quiet and went back to his work.

"You see, Mr. Vincenzo," Carla told him, "Uncle Carl told me he was getting some time off, I thought I would come out from California and see if maybe I could work here for a while before he gets back. I do have experience working for newspapers."

Half jokingly, Tony couldn't resist asking, "Are you any good?"

Carla unzipped her bag and took out three papers and gave them to Tony for an answer. He saw they were cut out copies of articles that she had written and provided photographs for; one covered a massive fire in an office building, another one involved a botched trafficking ring with military ties, and the other involved a town hit by a tornado last summer, complete with up close and personal pictures of the funnel in addition to just the ugly skies and messy aftermath that left half the town demolished.

"Very interesting," he told her, "Exactly _how_ did you get this picture?"

"My friend and I were driving through the town when we saw the tornado touch down ahead of us, we threw the car in reverse and while he drove, I stood up in the passenger side and started snapping pictures of it," she explained. "Now, granted I haven't been doing this long, and to answer, no, I didn't go to college, and I wasn't the best student in high school, I know they don't have majors in high school but I did take journalism and photography and excelled in them as well as English and history, all of which I consider to be important tools to use in the investigative reporting business."

Tony considered it for a while and said, "I may regret this, Miss Kolchak, I may end up regretting this very much because I know your uncle well enough to wish I didn't…but while Carl's out, I'll let you fill his spot and see what you can do."

Carla smiled and said, "Thank you, Mr. Vincenzo."

"Call me Tony," he told her, "Oh but there's one question I must ask before I give you the job."

"What's that?" she asked.

He tried to think of a way to put this without insulting her. "How well do you know your uncle?"

"Well I live in California so we aren't very close," she said.

"Do you know what he's like? Do you happen to know what his beliefs are?"

She wasn't getting it, "What, you mean like religion?"

"No…I'll be the first to admit your uncle is one hell of a reporter, _when_ he can keep his mind on the job, but a lot of times he runs off with some gobbledygook about werewolves, swamp creatures, little green men, you don't happen to believe in any of that junk, do you?"

Carla shook her head, "Oh no, Mr. Vincenzo, certainly not."

"Well that's fine," he smiled, "Consider yourself hired. Oh but there is one more thing, what _were_ you typing when I came in?"

Carla rolled the paper out of the typewriter and gave it to him to read. It was an article introducing herself as Carl's replacement for the time being and also gave insight on how the Windy City looked through the eyes of a born and bred Californian.

"A little sappy but for the first day it'll do," he said as he gave it back to her and started towards his own office.

"Oh Mr. Vincenzo," Carla called to him, "While Uncle Carl's on vacation is it alright if I keep my supplies in his desk?"

"Yes, that'll be fine," he said, and then stopped. _Supplies_? He turned back and saw Carla taking several large books out of her travel bag and stuffing them into Carl's desk, he went over and asked her, "Miss Kolchak, exactly what _is_ all that?"

"Oh…well I hope you don't mind, but I just got in town and haven't got a place to stay yet, so I'm leaving my personal belongings here until I get checked in."

Tony nodded understandingly, but on the inside he was starting to think just how crazy he'd gone after being around Carl all these years, giving a job to a kid who didn't even have an address to be reached at yet, and Kolchak's niece of all people to boot! He cleared his throat and asked if she would mind if he looked at her books, she didn't mind and he looked through them and saw much to his relief that they were just true crime books.

"You're probably aware of this," she said, "But Chicago has a notorious past for its part of the big crime wave of the 20s and 30s."

"Yes, I'm aware," he said as he handed her books back.

"Well I've always been fascinated by all the stories," Carla explained, "I figured maybe something will pop up while I'm here that I can tie in to its history."

"Just stick to the facts and you'll do alright here, kid," he told her and gave her a light slap on the back, "Oh by the way, you're going to be working alongside the other members of this newspaper, this is our advice columnist Miss Emily, and this is Ron Updike."

"I seem to recall my uncle mentioning something about an Updike…or maybe he said Uptight."

"Hmph," Ron turned up his nose, but he decided to be civilized and he stood up from his desk to shake her hand and said, "Pleased to be working with you, Miss Kolchak."

Carla turned up her palm and said, "I never shake hands with people, they have germs on them." And she walked past him and went over to Miss Emily's desk and shook hands with her and said, "Nice to meet you, Miss Emily."

Ron turned his attention back to his work and grumbled under his breath, "Just our luck, we get rid of one Kolchak and then get another in his place."

Carla went back to her desk and watched until Tony was out of the room, then she reached into the bottom of her bag and pulled out several large books about vampires, voodoo zombies, ghosts, and other unexplained phenomena throughout history and placed them in the bottom of the desk under her crime books, steno pads, pen sets and cassette recorder and blank tapes. What Vincenzo didn't know wouldn't hurt either of them.


	2. Chapter 2

Carla yawned and stretched at her uncle's desk and leaned back in his chair and closed her eyes for a minute. Her first day on the job and already she found a story to write, and not just any story, they were possibly looking at a murder here. It seemed to her that that ought to please Vincenzo when he came in. After all Chicago was famous for its murders, of course if that's what this case turned out to be, Carla knew it wouldn't be up to par with the city's most notorious killings, but still a story was a story, and a murder was a very good story for any newspaper.

Picking up one of the notepad books she'd taken with her earlier, Carla flipped through the notes she'd taken by the police and read through them again, and again, and once more to make sure she wasn't missing anything. There was something in the notes that was setting off a bell in her mind, but she couldn't put her finger on it. She read the notes again, compared them against the rough draft she'd punched up on her typewriter and tried to think of what it was. Finally, it occurred to her, she'd seen this story before, in a newspaper printed back in California. If she could only find out what the first story had been…but a Chicago newspaper wouldn't have access to California newspaper records. Of course…Carla looked at the telephone on the desk and decided there was only one thing to do.

A long distance phone call to a California newspaper office, and the time it took for the person on the other end of the line to find the record she was looking for, Carla knew was going to make the INS phone bill murder for that month, but she'd explain it to Vincenzo when he came in and smooth it over with him. In the meantime she still had work to do, and she rolled a fresh piece of paper in the typewriter and decided to try it again. If she could get this story right, it was going to be red hot when it went on the presses tomorrow.

* * *

Tony Vincenzo _was_ surprised when he came in the next morning and found Carla asleep at Carl's desk. He put his things down and went over to the desk and shook her awake, saying softly, "Miss Kolchak…Miss Kolchak."

Carla shot up in the chair with a surprised yelp and said, "Right away, boss!" Then she realized that she was awake, tiredly rubbed her eyes and said, "Hi Mr. Vincenzo."

"Carla, what're you doing here?" Tony asked.

"I'll be out of your hair in a minute," Carla assured him, "I just need a minute and then I'll leave for the night and…" she saw Tony gesturing towards the windows and she turned and saw it already was morning, "Oh…I'm sorry, boss, I didn't mean to stay here all night."

"Yeah, but Miss Kolchak, what _are_ you doing here?" Tony tried again.

Carla ripped the paper out of the typewriter and said, "I was putting the finishing touches on my article for today. I think I finally got it ready to publish."

Tony read over the story, and when he finished, he looked back at Carla and could only ask, "Murder?"

"I got a comment from one of the policemen at the hospital yesterday," Carla said, "He said that the nurse who called him in about the man who died after his operation, mentioned something about suture."

"Suture?" Tony repeated, confused.

"Suture," Carla nodded tiredly, "You see there are permanent sutures for stitching people up, and then there are temporary ones that dissolve on their own…and I did some checking, and if what the doctors told me is true, you _never_ use temporary sutures for a heart surgery, not to put a pacemaker in, and it can't be a mistake because the two sutures are different colors and different textures, anybody who's ever handled one would know something was different if they were given the other."

Tony nodded slowly, starting to catch on, "So whoever supplied the suture for the operation did it to intentionally kill the man?"

"That's the way it seems so far," Carla answered.

"It's unusual," Tony told her.

"But not impossible and not the first time," Carla replied, "I remembered reading about a similar case back in California, oh and that's something else, I made a couple of long distance calls to find this out, you can dock it from my pay…anyway, there's this homicide cop in California who had a similar case, actually he's a lieutenant, but he found out about it _before_ the heart patient died, the problem was the doctor killed another person to cover it up, an attending nurse who handled the suture. But they got him on the attempted murder also, caught him _with_ the temporary suture right after an emergency surgery to replace it with permanent suture."

"Okay, I'll buy that, but _why_ would a doctor want to kill his patient deliberately?" Tony asked.

"That," Carla answered, "Is for the police to find out, it's _their_ job to find a motive, we're just reporting what they're willing to tell us this early into the investigation, and what the flatfoot told me was that they are investigating everybody who works in that hospital who had any access to both the man who died, and all the suture inventory."

"And you're _sure_ that that's all there is to this story?' Tony asked.

"So far anyway," Carla nodded.

Tony nodded mockingly in response and said, "Alright, Kolchak, I'll get it run off for the morning paper…why don't you go home…or wherever, and get some rest?"

"Oh thanks, Mr. Vincenzo," Carla said tiredly, "I'd like that very much."

Once Carla had left the office, Tony looked at the article again, and almost jumped for joy; hooray, a good old plain ordinary murder, no werewolves, no vampires, no mummies, nothing weird or supernatural. If this kid could keep up work this good, he might just have to reconsider which Kolchak kept their employment there once Carl got back from his vacation.

* * *

Carla had gotten herself checked into a room at a large house offering apartments for rent, hers was on the second floor facing the west side. As soon as she got in her room she collapsed on top of the bed and fell asleep, and didn't wake up until late in the afternoon. She knew that she was going to have to come up with another good story for Vincenzo tomorrow, so she decided to take her camera with her later and check out the Chicago nightlife and see if anything interesting happened tonight.

As the sun went down, Carla left the apartment house and went down to a diner for dinner. After that she took her camera and a notepad and headed out to see what the windy city's nightlife had to offer. Of course much of the nightlife occurred indoors, so one of the first places Carla decided to check out was a bar called Pandora's Bottle. She parked herself at a stool by the bar and looked around at everybody who had either already had too much to drink or was in the process of having too much to drink. If nothing else, a barroom brawl was something that never got highlighted in the daily paper and might be a good change of pace; but Carla also kept an ear open incase anybody under the influence of booze suddenly decided to confess to an unsolved crime committed anywhere between yesterday and 10 years ago. Anything that she found would have to be something good to make it in tomorrow's paper. She herself ordered a beer and made it last for two hours as she watched the events in the bar unfold.

A lot of people got drunk, a good number of them got mouthy, some obscene, and a few came close to throwing punches at one another. Through all this, Carla sat back and watched and waited for a good moment to get her camera out and snap a few shots. She didn't have long to wait; a couple of the barflies who had had too much to drink got into a heated argument and started swinging at each other. As long as the fight was restrained to just the two of them, nobody seemed to matter much, but when one guy hit a third man in the bar, and the third one struck back and resulted in two more people getting hurt from flying beer bottles, then it became a free-for-all.

Carla ducked behind the bar and managed to get a few pictures of the barroom brawl, even though she knew that there wasn't too much out of the ordinary to be seen here, but it would be better than nothing. Then something happened that made her story. A police officer walking his beat had heard the noise and come in to try and bust up the fight. Carla had been able to make out the name on his badge when he showed it, two seconds before somebody hit him and he went down. Carla snapped a couple more pictures and then jumped in to join the fight. She grabbed the foot of one man beating on the officer and yanked it back, dropping him on the floor. With him down for the count in a drunken stupor, she grabbed another man by the back of his jacket and yanked him back as well, but put her weight and momentum into it and forced him across the room and he fell back against a wall. She could hear sirens approaching so decided to get out of there before the cops tried confiscating her camera.

As she ran out of the bar she could see the lights shining from a couple blocks away, so she ran in the other direction and ducked down a dark alley. When she was certain she'd gone far enough nobody would find her, she stopped running and tried to catch her breath. Her heart was beating so hard it was like an Indian war drum. Just as she caught her breath, she heard an unearthly scream that sounded like it was coming from the other side of the wooden fence in the alley. She turned towards the scream and saw a figure jump over the fence and it came down on her.

* * *

When Carla came to, her head was throbbing and her eyes were working on the same rhythm and felt like they were going to pop out of her head. Forcing them open she saw two policemen standing over her and saw the spinning light from their squad car at the end of the alley.

"What happened?" she asked as she pulled herself up.

"Why don't you tell us that down at the station?" one of the cops asked as he jerked her to her feet and the two of them forced her over to the car.

"Hey now wait a minute," Carla said as she dragged her feet, "What's going on here?"

"Get in the car," the second cop said as he shoved her in.

Carla beat on the window and screamed at them through the door, "You can't do this to me, I'm a member of the press!" But mentally she was thinking about how now she really knew how her uncle Carl felt on his job.

"What's going on?" she demanded to know as they got in, "What's this all about."

"Try murder," the first cop told her.

"What!?" Carla all but jumped through the roof of the car at that statement.


End file.
